Secular Sunday #89 – The End of the Weekend

Another extra long Second Sunday brunch has led to this newsletter being quite late again. Isn’t it great to be an atheist and have your Sundays free? Anyway, we have some important news about our AGM and the usual other bits and pieces.

– Derek Walsh, Editor

News

The 2013 Atheist Ireland AGM will take place in two weeks time, on Saturday 21 September, in the Harbour Hotel in Galway. As a national organisation, we hold every second AGM outside Dublin. The morning session is for members only, and the afternoon session is open to members of the public. The morning session will be from 10:00 am to 12.30 pm, and will include a report on the past year’s activities, a report on our finances, election of the committee for the coming year, and plans for the coming year. The afternoon session will be from 2:00 to 5:00 pm, and will discuss our campaign for an ethical secular state, and in particular for a secular education system. We elect four officers at the AGM, and we can create extra roles on the committee for people who have an interest in working with us. If you are interested in being on the committee, please let us know by email by next Friday, 13 September, and we can discuss how best you can contribute. If you’re not already a member of Atheist Ireland, you can join here.

Michael Nugent appeared on last week’s Challenging God with Vincent Browne. The full episode can be seen online here, and there are some clips on our YouTube channel. The series continues tonight Sunday 8 September at 11:00pm on TV3.

Atheist Ireland member Ashling O’Brien has started a Meetup group for atheist and agnostic singles in Dublin. If you’re single and non-religious you may want to join.

Calendar

Wednesday 18 September, 8:00 pm, Absolute Hotel, Sir Harry’s Mall, Limerick (map)
The Mid West Humanists are meeting and will be appointing people to go to the TDs (and maybe Senators) in the region between about 5 and 19 October, as the Constitutional Convention is to discuss the Blasphemy provision on 19 and 20 October; and finalising the letter to give to each TD and what each pair or trio of Mid West Humanists will say there. The Mid West Humanists are now on Facebook and Twitter.

Bloggage

The Ahmadi Muslims represent a reformist movement within Islam that, for over a century, has embodied their motto of “Love For All Hatred For None”. It would be wrong to call them pacifists – many in their community have distinguished themselves in their countries’ militaries – but nonretaliation is at the core of their beliefs. When a spiritual leader was stabbed in the neck while at prayer in his mosque, his final instruction before losing consciousness was that the assassin not be harmed. – Geoff Lillisdefends his tweets about Ahmadi Muslims

How on earth is a woman being the mother of a young child relevant to her being the victim of a serious sex assault? And how on earth does it ‘not look great’ for a woman to be the mother of a young child? Even putting aside his lack of empathy and compassion for real people, is he aware of the role of Mary in the mythology of his own religion? – Michael Nugent examinesthe comments of a Catholic priest